The next three days were fairly uneventful for Shon and Tarun. They continued along the main road at a steady pace, and the weather remained dry and warm enough that they could comfortably sleep under the stars in their sleeping bags at the end of each day.

Shon began to grow tired of eating the venison jerky, hard biscuits, nuts, and dried fruit that he and Tarun had purchased in Brookdale. He was also growing weary of the monotonous walking and the vague feeling he could never shake that they were being watched. Still, he kept his spirits up by telling himself that every step was bringing him closer to the valley that may hold some answers about his parents.

On the seventh day since they left Life’s Edge, dark gray clouds began gathering in the skies and a wind began blowing that was noticeably cooler than they had encountered so far. That day, Shon and Tarun came to a wide fork in the main road, which was their cue to begin looking for the small path that would lead towards the green valley on their map. It took until the middle of the afternoon just to find the path because it was so overgrown with bushes and shrubs.

The trail looked old, dusty, and disused. It was littered with dead leaves and seemed to lead in a direction towards some rather steep-looking terrain. Upon examining their map, Shon estimated that it was still roughly a full day’s walk from their current location to the spot that Grodin had marked as their destination.

“It looks like there’s a town on the map not far from here,” Shon said to Tarun. “I think we should stay there for the night and start on this trail tomorrow after we’ve gotten a good night’s sleep. Besides, I don’t like the look of those clouds and I’d rather not get rained on tonight. What do you think, Tarun?”

Shon looked up from his map and saw that Tarun was staring ahead at the trail with a strange look on his face. “Is something wrong, Tarun?” Shon asked.

Tarun blinked a couple of times as if snapping out of a daydream. “I don’t know,” Tarun said, turning to look at Shon. “I was just thinking about something Krall said about getting out when something didn’t feel right. I think staying in that town for the night is a good idea.”

For once Shon didn’t mind the idea of Tarun following some of Krall’s advice, and within a couple of hours they arrived in the town of Switchback. It was still only late afternoon when they located the inn at the center of town, but the darkening sky made it feel much later. Tarun and Shon decided it would be best to eat their dinner and go to sleep early so they could get started early the next day.

Once Shon had purchased their rooms and meals for the evening, he and Tarun sat down in the tavern that also served as the restaurant on the first floor of the inn. As they began eating their meal, they could hear the rain begin falling outside.

Tarun and Shon ate in no particular hurry since neither was very tired, and Shon wanted to savor his meal that didn’t consist of dry trail food. The crowd in the tavern steadily grew larger and louder as the rain continued on outside, and Shon eventually had to pull the hood of his cloak over his head to quiet the many minds around them.

In the midst of the noise, Shon heard a loud voice at the table behind him say, “Yep, a cougar all right. Up there in the mountains by the fork in the road. I didn’t believe it at first either, but about five people say they’ve spotted it now and only one of them is an idiot.”

Shon turned around in his seat and saw an old man with white hair and beard speaking to a younger man with a tired expression on his face. “Excuse me,” Shon said, “I don’t want to be rude, but I overheard your conversation…”

Shon was interrupted by the younger man at the table, who now had an embarrassed look on his face. “I’m sorry,” said the man, “we didn’t mean to bother you. My father is kind of going deaf and he doesn’t realize how loud he’s talking.”

“No, it’s not that,” Shon quickly said. “It’s just that my friend and I need to travel towards those mountains tomorrow. Did you say a cougar has been seen in that area?”

“A cougar in that area?” the old man said loudly. “You mean you’ve seen one too?”

“No, Pop,” the younger man said in a loud voice. “They were asking about the cougar YOU were talking about.” Then turning to Shon he quietly added, “I swear, he’s losing his hearing, but not his mind.”

“Oh yeah,” the old man said loudly. “Quite a few people have spotted the cougar not far from here. Mostly hunters who go into the woods looking for game, but one young lady said she saw it while picking herbs. You boys going anywhere near those mountains anytime soon?”

Shon nodded his head to avoid any more shouting. He didn’t want everyone in the whole tavern to know where he and Tarun were headed.

“Well you’d better be careful then,” continued the old man. “Do you boys know the tricks to dealing with a cougar in the woods?”

Shon and Tarun both shook their heads.

“The first trick is to avoid the cougar in the first place,” said the old man. “Sticking to the main road is a good way to do that, but then again there really aren’t any main roads going up to those mountains. Of course this trick doesn’t do a lick of good if you’re like that idiot hunter who’s out there right now looking for the thing on purpose.”

“That brings me to the second trick,” the old man continued. “If you do find yourself facing a cougar, don’t run away. That’ll just make him want to chase you. What you want to do is make yourself look as big and scary as possible. That shouldn’t be a problem for your friend there. Just wave your arms above your head and make a lot of loud noise. That usually does the trick.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Tarun said to the old man. Tarun didn’t shout, but the old man seemed to understand him anyway.

***

Tarun awoke the next morning soon after sunrise, feeling well rested. He awoke Shon, and after a quick breakfast downstairs the two packed their bags and left the inn to find the little trail again.

The sky outside was mostly blue with a few clouds remaining. Tarun assumed that the rain the day before must have depleted the clouds, and he was glad it looked like they would have clear weather for their journey. There were a few puddles on the side of the main road, but the early morning sunshine seemed to have already dried up much of the water.

Tarun and Shon soon arrived at the fork in the road and found the trailhead they had located the day before. Tarun was glad that they had found the trail before the previous day’s rain had begun. The wet ground and overgrowth made the path look even less like a real trail and he was not sure if they would have recognized it in its current state. As Tarun looked at the trail again he felt a sense of unease, though not as pronounced as the day before, and he reasoned to himself that it was just nervousness attributed to the warning they received about the cougar in the area.

Tarun and Shon began to walk forward along the trail and it quickly became apparent to Tarun that although they had avoided the rain, they would not be able to avoid getting wet. The leaves of the bushes and shrubs that they had to walk through on the overgrown trail still held several beads of water from the night before, and the moisture quickly accumulated on their clothes. The ground of the trail that was shaded by so much plant life had dried much less than the main road in the sun, and the dusty trail had become muddy and slick. The boot that Tarun had accidentally sliced with the woodcutter’s axe became particularly squishy and uncomfortable.

Tarun kept any complaints he had to himself, but Shon could see how wet his friend was getting, so he offered to take a turn in the lead so the leaves wouldn’t have so much water on them when Tarun walked through them. Tarun started to object, but Shon pointed out that his father’s cloak seemed quite water repellent, so the idea seemed to make sense.

Before long the trail began to slope steeply upward and Tarun and Shon had to stop more frequently to catch their breath. For the first time since they had left Life’s Edge, Tarun began to notice just how much larger and heavier his pack was than his friend’s. As they continued to climb upwards, the trail became less straight and began to cut back and forth in patterns that allowed them to make gradual progress up the steep landscape. The overgrowth made it nearly impossible to see the direction that the trail was leading them, and the only way they could even be sure they were still on the trail at all was to look down at their own feet and see the narrow path.

They continued their ascent along the trail walking without any clear sense of the direction they were heading or where the trail would take them next, but they kept taking one step after another. The air began to feel much cooler and a light mist hung in the air. After several hours the trail began to straighten out again and through the mist they could see that the ground and trees to their left sloped steeply downward while the ground to their right sloped steeply upward.

About an hour after noon the mist around them was thickening into a fog, but the overgrowth finally started to thin out so that Tarun and Shon could begin to see the narrow trail in front of them. They also saw why the vegetation began to thin. Instead of dirt and mud, the landscape in front of them was much rockier. Both the left and right side of the trail seemed to be covered with flat angular stones of varying sizes that would occasionally tumble down the sloped landscape, causing a fair amount of clattering as they collided with the other light gray stones on the way down.

At one point they came to a portion of the trail that had no overgrowth at all, and both sides of the trail were covered with nothing but the light gray shale that now dominated the sloped mountainside. Shon began to walk out of the overgrowth and on to the rocky path, carefully trying to avoid sending any bits of shale clattering down the slope to their right. Tarun hesitated.

“Doesn’t this feel rather… exposed to you?” Tarun asked.

“Well I’m certainly not crazy about it,” said Shon as he continued to walk carefully forward, using Stick to steady himself on the stone-covered path. “But what other option do we have? Leave the trail or turn around and go back? And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind having a break from all those wet leaves. My cloak is keeping most of me dry, but I’m starting to feel rather steam-cooked under this hood.”

Tarun was still holding back in the overgrowth when he saw Shon remove the hood from his head, and then almost immediately after he saw his friend stumble, scream as if in pain, and fall to his knees, clutching his head. Tarun immediately ran out of the overgrowth to his friend’s side on the rocky trail. Shon had just pulled the hood back over his head when Tarun arrived next to him.

“What happened?” Tarun asked. “Are you hurt?”

“I… I don’t know,” Shon said, rubbing the sides of his head. “I felt such intense pain. More intense than I’ve ever felt before, but it wasn’t mine.” Shon suddenly turned and looked at Tarun with panic in his eyes. “There’s something out here!”

Tarun could hear the clattering of falling shale above and below them, but the fog on all sides made it impossible to know if the sounds were caused by anything other than their own movements. “Let’s get back to the cover of the bushes,” Tarun said quietly. “I don’t think it would be very safe for me to carry you on this trail. Are you able to walk?”

“Yes,” Shon said, gingerly getting to his feet. “I only scraped my knees a little.”

Tarun wanted to stand behind Shon to steady him as they walked back the way they came, but the trail was too narrow for them to safely switch places, so he lead the way back to the overgrowth. But before they could reach the vegetation, they heard a loud growl.

Tarun saw a large, sand-colored animal climbing down the rocky slope, cutting them off from the overgrowth. “It’s the cougar,” Shon whispered into Tarun’s ear. “Do you think we should run for it?”

“No, the old man said that would only make things worse,” Tarun said. Remembering the old man’s advice, Tarun stretched his arms out wide and began stomping his feet and shouting as loud as he could. The cougar snarled and continued descending the rocky slope towards them.

Tarun wondered frantically why the old man’s advice wasn’t working. Had the old man actually lost his mind? Was this some kind of a sick joke he played on travelers? He continued shouting, stomping, and waving his arms until he heard Shon scream in pain again behind him.

“There’s something wrong with this cougar!” Shon shouted as if in agony. “It isn’t what I felt before but… AHHH!”

As the cougar came closer, Tarun noticed for the first time that the cougar had blood running from what looked like large black and purple quills sticking out of its flank, and thick frothy purple drool coming out of its mouth. The series of events that followed took place so quickly that they defied Tarun’s comprehension. He began to remove his pack to reach for the woodcutter’s axe he had secured to the back. Before he could untie it, the cougar leapt at the travelers with claws extended and mouth open.

In a flash, an enormous black reptilian head appeared out of the fog below them and snapped the cougar out of midair and into the creature’s powerful jaws. The cougar immediately went limp once speared between the beast’s huge fangs. The creature swallowed the cougar whole as the rest of its body noisily climbed up the slope. As it emerged from the fog, Tarun could see hard and sleek black scales edged with purple, four thick legs with razor like claws at the feet, two leathery wings folded on its back, and a long powerful tail tipped with dozens of the sharp black and purple quills that Tarun had seen sticking out of the cougar.

Tarun stood awestruck in front of the monster and the only action he could manage was to whisper the one word on his mind. “Dragon.”

The dragon turned its attention to Tarun and Shon with pure black eyes and then let out a deafening roar. The sound shocked Tarun out of his stupor and he began to try again to untie the axe from his pack. Seeing Tarun’s movements, the dragon opened its mouth and lunged at him, but stopped short when Tarun raised his pack in front the dragon out of instinct.

Suddenly the dragon reared its head back as if to gag, and began to slip on the shale beneath its feet. A moment later it whipped its head around and let out a high pitched roar as if in pain, and then flew clumsily through the trees back into the fog. As the dragon sped away, the last thing that Tarun saw disappear into the wet gray air was its spiked tail. For just a moment, it looked to Tarun as if one of the spikes on its tail was fletched with feathers like an arrow.

As soon as the dragon was out of sight, Tarun and Shon scrambled for the cover of the nearby trees and bushes. After a few minutes, Shon held his breath and slowly began to remove the hood from his head. When his hood was pulled all the way down, Shon let out a deep sigh of relief. “I think we’re safe,” Shon said. “It looks like the pain dragon is gone.”

“The what?” Tarun asked.

“Well, I’ve heard there are fire dragons and ice dragons and poison dragons, and so on,” Shon said. “So I decided that one must be a pain dragon.”

“I didn’t feel any pain,” said Tarun. “Just terror.”

“Well whatever it was, it seems to be gone now,” said Shon. “And I think we should keep going forward on the trail before it comes back for seconds.”

Tarun agreed, and they both decided to move along the rest of the trail as quickly as they could. They practically ran across the stretch of path where they encountered the cougar and the dragon among the shale. Once they made it past the open rocky slope and back into the cover of the trees and other vegetation they slowed down a little bit, but they maintained a very hurried pace for another hour.

Two hours after their encounter with the dragon, Tarun and Shon stepped out of the forest onto a large clearing next to a high cliff. A strong wind was blowing near the ledge. The wind was cold but dry, and it helped dry the surface of Tarun and Shon’s clothes. From the top of the cliff they could see a clear blue sky above them, and below them they saw the thick fog roll over the ground below.

“It’s like we’re looking down at a cloud instead of looking up at one,” said Tarun.

“Actually,” said Shon, “that may be exactly what we’re doing. I’m not sure exactly how high we’ve climbed, but it must be pretty high up.”

Tarun and Shon decided that the overlook was a good place to finally stop and eat some lunch. They reasoned that although it was exposed, at least they would be able to see the dragon coming if it tried to attack them again. The sun was moving low in the sky and they had not eaten since breakfast early that morning, and they ate their dinner with enthusiasm.

As they finished their meal, the mist below started to dissipate and Tarun heard Shon audibly gasp. Suddenly in their view they saw the most green and verdant landscape Tarun had ever seen. Even with a heavy shadow already covering most of the land below, Tarun saw a large blue lake, a couple of waterfalls, and countless trees and other plants.

Tarun heard the sound of sniffling and he turned around to see tears in Shon’s eyes. “Are you alright, my friend?” he asked.

“It’s the green valley, Tarun,” Shon said with a smile. “It’s right below us.”